Quadrophenia - A Mod Ballet - Revew

Sadler's Wells, London

*****

Written by Pete Townshend

Choreographed by Paul Roberts

Directed by Rob Ashford

Paris Fitzpatrick

Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia is a glorious fusion of classical modern music, outstanding dance and world class stagecraft that creates an evening of outstandingly provocative entertainment. Playing at Sadler’s Wells, the classic 1973 album that became a movie in 1979, is now translated into ballet under Rob Ashford’s direction and Paul Robert’s choreography.

To be fair, both men have had their visionary work enhanced by the musical foundations laid down by Rachel Fuller’s orchestration that had taken The Who’s legendary album, stripped out the lyrics and let the music sing its own narrative. As a mark of the evening’s pedigree, the backing soundtrack has been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Quadrophenia speaks of  Britain’s culture in the 1960s played through the eyes of Jimmy, a teenage Londoner and his post-adolescent journey through desires, frustrations, music and gang culture. This was the Mods v Rockers era, with Townshend’s narrative picking out with pinpoint precision Jimmy’s mental anguish. And as a part of the meticulously created backdrop to this dance, as the Mods battled the Rockers beneath Brighton Pier, there’s more than a hint of West Side Story’s Jets vs Sharks in the conflict.

On the night of this review Jimmy was danced, spectacularly, by Paris Fitzpatrick. Notable characters (though the entire company are outstanding) that impact Jimmy are The Mod Girl (Taela Yeomans-Brown) and The Ace Face (Dan Baines). Townshend’s story also picks out the impact of the horrors of the Second World War on Jimmy’s father, where Stuart Neal delivers a haunting routine.

The stage set may be beautifully simple, but the projections designed by Yeastculture.org are state of the art. Bending our sense of perception and reality, the multi-dimensional imagery elevates the music and dance to a level rarely seen on a London stage. And don’t forget that this ballet’s costumes are designed by the legendary Paul Smith and yes, there is even a Lambretta on stage too!

Quadrophenia as a ballet takes a glimpse of England's history, portraying it with authenticity and unbelievable imagination, with flawless components from both its cast and creative team. Only on for a short while, it is unmissable!

(And dare I ask - any chance of Pete Townshend and Rachel Fuller transforming Tommy into a ballet???)

Runs until 13th July then on tour

Photo credit: Johan Persson

My Thoughts on Jason Robert Brown's Parade

As Jason Robert Brown's Parade opens at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre this week, I was invited to write the Foreword for the production's programme.

With the producers' permission, my article is reprinted below. 

It is a tremendously exciting event for Manchester's newest theatre, Hope Mill Theatre, to be staging the city’s première of Parade, a show that is both inspirational and yet deeply troubling. The musical is a complex, true and thrilling story that touches upon some of the worst aspects of humanity while celebrating a love that flourished in the most desperate of circumstances.

Jason Robert Brown’s Tony-winner kicks off during the 1913 Confederate Memorial Day Parade in Atlanta, Georgia. The Civil War had been fought (and lost) some 50 years earlier and it is the aftermath of that defeat that powers the context of this show. 

The Southern States had fought the North in a desperate, bloody struggle to hold on to their right to enslave African Americans. Slavery was (and is) de-humanising and barbaric and yet, to a majority of folk in the Confederacy, it was not only acceptable, it was desirable. Southern racism was ingrained and the Confederate flag remains a chilling emblem of the white supremacists.

As that 1913 parade passed by, Mary Phagan a white 13 year old girl from Marietta, just outside Atlanta, was brutally raped and murdered in the city’s pencil factory where she worked. Amid a hue and cry for justice, it didn't take Atlanta’s Police Department long to be conveniently pointed in the wrong direction, accusing Leo Frank, the factory superintendent. Frank may have been white, but he was a Yankee from the North and worse, a Jew. 

Parade explores how Frank was subsequently framed and how he and his wife Lucille, fought back. Child abuse and murder may not be regular subjects for a musical theatre treatment, yet from this dark core, composer Jason Robert Brown has fashioned one of the finest musicals to have emerged in the last 20 years.

Parade succeeds on so many levels. It has a finely crafted score and libretto, it's a history lesson and a towering love story. Brown won a Tony for the score; listen out for the traditional melodies of the South, carefully woven into his work. There’s Gospel, Spiritual, Blues and Swing in there, with the composer saving perhaps one of musical theatre’s finest coups for his Act One Finale. As Parade’s narrative reaches a horrendous turning point, Brown has his citizens of Atlanta launch into an exhilarating cakewalk. Where Kander and Ebb brought Cabaret’s first half to a troubling close with ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’, Brown’s cakewalk juxtaposes jubilation with injustice. Rarely has an array of swirling Southern petticoats and frocks been quite so stomach churning.

As a history lesson, Parade is up there with the best. The opening number ‘The Old Red Hills Of Home’ hits the audience with an unforgiving staccato percussion that soon includes a funereal chime alongside discordant strings, before evolving into a chilling yet (whisper it not) discomfortingly stirring anthem. The song is remarkable in that between its opening and closing bars, Brown tells the entire story of the South’s Civil War. A young and handsome Confederate soldier sings the opening lines, who by the song’s end is a gnarled and crippled veteran. Wounded and bitter, the old soldier dreams of the ‘lives that we led when the South land was free’. 

Brown also kicks off the second half with a punch. While Parade is famously about anti-Semitism, ‘A Rumblin’ And A Rollin’ is sung by two of the Governor of Georgia’s African American Domestic Staff, both well aware that while the Frank furore is gripping the nation, their lot hasn't significantly changed, even after the abolition of slavery. Riley, the Governor’s Chauffeur has a line ‘the local hotels wouldn't be so packed, if a little black girl had gotten attacked’ that should prick at America’s collective conscience even today, while his killer lyric a few bars on, ‘there’s a black man swingin’ in every tree, but they don't never pay attention!’ has a devastating simplicity.

Parade also beats to the drum of a passionate love story. Early on we find Leo and Lucille questioning their very different Jewish lifestyles. He’s from Brooklyn, a ‘Yankee with a college education’, while she is a privileged belle about whom Frank observes ‘for the life of me I cannot understand how God created you people Jewish AND Southern!’. There is a cultural gulf between the pair which, upon Leo’s arrest, only widens. How Alfred Uhry’s book and Brown’s lyrics portray the couple’s deepening love, is a literary master stroke. 

While the show was to receive numerous nominations in both Broadway’s 1999 awards season and later in 2008 on its London opening, the Opening at New York's Lincoln Centre disappointed, running for barely 100 performances. Variety magazine called it the ‘ultimate feel-bad musical’ and the crowds stayed away.

It was however, to be at London’s modest Donmar Warehouse, directed by Rob Ashford who had been the show's original Dance Captain on Broadway, that the show was to soar. So much so that Brown took the Donmar production back for a successful run in Los Angeles, with Lara Pulver, the Donmar’s Lucille, still in the lead. Thom Southerland’s fringe production a few years later at London’s Southwark Playhouse received similar plaudits. 

So why was Parade loved in London, yet shunned in New York? Wise theatre heads have suggested that perhaps Americans have little appetite for a musical that focuses upon such an ugly feature of their country’s history.

100 years on, what has been the legacy of the Frank case? For good, it served to spawn the Anti-Defamation League, America’s anti-fascist organisation. However the episode also re-ignited the burning crosses of the Klu Klux Klan. I recently visited Marietta to see for myself where Leo Frank’s story ended. Sadly, even if un-surprisingly, the site isn't marked amidst what is now a busy road intersection and if you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd never know you've been there.

And think back to last year, with the horrific massacre of 9 Black Americans, shot as they prayed in a South Carolina church, by a man who was pictured proudly waving the Confederate flag. Incredibly up until last year, a handful of States still flew that flag from government buildings, with Mississippi still including the Confederate emblem as a component of its state flag to this day. 

The Leo Frank trial and its aftermath ripped a nation apart, re-opening fault lines that to this day have barely healed.

© Jonathan Baz 2016 All rights reserved

Parade opens at the Hope Mill Theatre on 18th May and plays until 5th June. 

For tickets, click here

A Damsel In Distress - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin

Book by Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson

Based on the novel by P.G.Wodehouse

and the play by P.G. Wodehouse and Ian Hay

Directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford

Nicholas Farrell and Sally Ann Triplett

A Damsel In Distress is a new(ish) musical confection that feels like it's been around for years. Based on the P.G.Wodehouse story and drawing upon the Gershwin brothers' songs that were composed for the similarly inspired 1937 movie, Jeremy Sams and Robert Hudson breathe life into a collection of classic concepts.

In all honesty, the fable’s ridiculous plot defies both and credibility and description. George Bevan, a gifted American musical theatre composer falls for Maud Marshmoreton, a titled young Englishwoman, who is herself the ward of the fearsomely dragon-esque Lady Caroline. Maud's father Lord Marshmoreton is an elderly landed gent with a keen eye for both horticulture and women and who in turn is smitten by Billie Dore an American actress in Bevan’s most recent show. (Keep up!) Besides these paramours, there are yet more romantic shenanigans and all set in a tale that hops between London's Savoy Theatre and the crumbling Gloucestershire stately pile of Totleigh Towers, as the cultural differences that straddle the Atlantic are affectionately mocked throughout.

Making his Chichester debut, Rob Ashford directs and choreographs with his trademark vivacity and visual flair. In this show the tap doesn’t drip, it gushes. Ashford has ripped out the Overture, (evidently a late change as it’s listed in the programme) so Things Are Looking Up opens the show, setting the tone with a full ensemble tap routine. Other dance highlights include the French Pastry Walk – the first time that most people will have seen a cakewalk performed with real cakes. Fidgety Feet proves another absolute joy to watch whilst Stiff Upper Lip gloriously defines the very British attitude of sang-froid through it's polar opposite: the tap dance! Marvellous stuff.

Whilst the story maybe 100% saccharine, the songs are diamonds and the cast is platinum. Summer Strallen and Richard Fleeshman are Maud and Bevan. Nobody does young romantic better than these two and amidst Totleigh Towers’ faux Middle Ages splendour, the challenge that the upstart American offers to Maud’s rigid adherence to the social mores is perfectly matched.

Nicholas Farrell’s dotty Lord is a decrepit foil to Sally Ann Triplett’s feisty Dore, with Isla Blair’s matronly curmudgeon, Lady Caroline being another perfectly executed gem. (Though writers note – if shows continue to promote the trope of old men as priapically comic Lotharios whilst their female contemporaries are portrayed as harridan old maids, then what hope for sexual and age-friendly diversity? Such stereotypes need to become outmoded.)

Other delights include Melle Stewart’s housemaid Alice, finding her true love “above stairs”, Chloe Hart and David Robert’s hilarious kitchen-based duet and Desmond Barrit’s wonderfully withering Keggs, the Butler.

The show makes for a whirl through the songbook – the star numbers being A Foggy Day (Fleeshman, divine) and Nice Work If You Can Get It (Stewart and Strallen, likewise) whilst Farrell’s Mine, sung to his roses, is comedy gold.

Christopher Oram’s sumptuous set is a mille-feuille of crennelation, whilst from a lofty perch Alan William’s band makes fine work of the Gershwin classics.

Ideally suited to Chichester’s charms, A Damsel In Distress makes for a delightful night in the theatre.

Runs until 27th June 2015

Mack-beth : A Profile of Norman Bowman

Bearded and relaxed in shorts and t-shirt, it’s a pleasure to grab an afternoon with Norman Bowman as he takes a breather from the demands of Kenneth Branagh’s acclaimed production of Macbeth at the Manchester International Festival. From a career that started out in musical theatre and has been most frequently filled by work in that genre, no-one was more surprised than Bowman himself to have been cast in this Shakespearean masterpiece, but as our conversation unfolds it is clear that all that this actor has achieved to date has been nothing less than hard won and above all, richly deserved.

Bowman’s biography is a tribute to his talents. He is wise to what makes a commercial West End production work, acknowledging that a “star name” is often needed to sell tickets and in a charmingly self-deprecating comment he acknowledges that today he may well not be that “star” person. Star billing or not, the body of work that this talented performer has achieved speaks of his abilities. From being cast as Marius in Les Miserables early on in his career, he has gone on to play Carousel’s Billy Bigelow in Chichester, Danny in a Grease national tour, Tony in West Side Story, and a two year stretch as Sam Carmichael in Mamma Mia. Whilst these parts have been his commercial leads, with many other supporting roles along the way, off West End his Mack in Thom Southerland’s 2012 production of Mack & Mabel at the Southwark Playhouse, was one of London’s outstanding male musical performances of the year. 

In Mack & Mabel with co-star Laura Pitt-Pulford

When Bowman reflects upon his journey to Macbeth, he does not hesitate in acknowledging the creative genius of Rob Ashford who, with Branagh, has co-directed the Scottish Play and who has creatively worked with the actor on three previous occasions. Bowman speaks warmly of being choreographed by Ashford in Michael Grandage’s 2005 Guys and Dolls, a show in which he played gambling gangster Harry the Horse, chuckling to learn in our conversation that the National Theatre’s 1982 version of that show opened with fellow gritty Scots countryman Bill Paterson, in the same role.

Ashford was to go on and cast Bowman as Tom Watson, the outspokenly racist publisher from the Deep South in Parade by Jason Robert Brown. Parade had had a difficult opening on Broadway and it was not until Ashford’s take on the work at London’s Donmar, that the show achieved the acclaim it deserved, an association with which Bowman is evidently proud. His next engagement under Ashford was to be directed by him in Finding Neverland at Leicester’s Curve. The production was controversial being movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s first venture into staging an original piece of theatre and Bowman is nothing if not diplomatic in referring to the show’s journey. Notwithstanding the show’s challenges, Finding Neverland had provided a further opportunity for Bowman to work with the American, so when the opportunity for Macbeth arose and whilst there is no question that Bowman earned his place on merit, the established mutual respect between him and Ashford combined with his glorious Arbroath accent clearly stood him in good stead. Bowman is in fact one of only a handful of authentic Scots cast in this most Caledonian of texts. 

Bowman speaks as a man wise about his world and his profession. Even though he looks (enviably) damn good for his 43 years, he is all too aware that he is frequently auditioning for roles against fellow professionals some years his junior. His philosophy though is admirable, always respectful of competitor actors, yet focussing his energy on his own performance, rather than worrying over the potential strengths and weaknesses of others. He refers to the adage that once you mentally put yourself in a “race for a part”, the other actor is already in front of you and how he avoids that thought process.  It’s an attitude that speaks of immense personal strength, a pre-requisite in the glamorous but nonetheless harsh show-business world. He also speaks with a wry and realistic acknowledgment of the power of social media, the new lingua franca amongst performers and those who follow them, as an important component of an actor’s profile. He is savvy enough to recognise the increasing importance of media channels such as Twitter that can allow an audience to immediately express praise (or displeasure) for production or performer as they exit a theatre and like many around him, he conducts himself with measured professionalism in the online community. 

As sword wielding Ross in Macbeth

Bowman is that rare performer who is not only skilled enough to have amassed a respectable body of work to date, but is also open-minded enough to welcome development and improvement from acting legends. He speaks warmly of his time, again under Michael Grandage, in the director’s Twelfth Night that formed part of the Donmar at the Wyndhams season. Working with and occasionally opposite Sir Derek Jacobi was an experience that he acknowledges to have been rare and privileged and Bowman speaks with warmth and admiration of how he found Jacobi to be a source of inspiration. That some four years on he now finds himself selected to perform in a Branagh-led Shakespearean troupe is a further mark of the Scotsman’s talent.  As one might expect, he is at all times refreshingly respectful, but never fawning, to these giants of the English stage.

A father of two twins, Bowman speaks lovingly of his kids and it is clear that notwithstanding his recent separation from their mother and his long term partner, they remain vitally important to him and he remains focussed on being a significant part of their developing lives, living close by to them in London

Our conversation ends to allow Bowman time to return backstage, don his heavy garb as nobleman Ross and perform the daily pre-curtain up rehearsal that health & safety regulations demand of all fight scenes. For this production of Macbeth such compliance is an exhausting obligation as the stage combat of Ashford and Branagh’s vision is amongst the most ambitious ever presented in live Shakespeare. The physical effort that the actors put into their meticulously choreographed battle-work and swordplay is jaw dropping, as sparks literally fly from the clashes of heavy steel.

I bid farewell to this accomplished musical theatre performer and Shakespearean stalwart to boot and reflect that to describe Norman Bowman as “comfortable in his own skin” would actually be to understate. He is good at his job and, with all appropriate modesty, he knows that he is good at it too. Above all, the man is a committed actor who loves his work and it shows.


Norman Bowman can be seen in Macbeth via NTLIve on Saturday 20 July 

My review of Macbeth can be found here

My review of Mack & Mabel can be found here

Macbeth

Manchester International Festival, Manchester, and via NT Live on July 20 ( see below)

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford

Kenneth Branagh

In this baking summer heat, a de-consecrated church in Manchester has been converted into a veritable cauldron. No eye of newt or fenny snake fillet  in this pot though. Rather the most inspired and infernal combination of an almost medieval venue, floored with mud, drenched with (real) rain, equipped with basically brutal steel and wood scenery, yet also endowed with state of the art theatre-craft. Wrap this combination up in some of Shakespeare's most beautiful prose, have it performed by actor-director Kenneth Branagh's company, and the result is theatrical enchantment.

Branagh's impact upon this production is profound. The poetry of Macbeth is legendary, and the actor's considered interpretation of its rhythm and context reveals new depths to Macbeth's tortured soul. Branagh has a demonstrated love for and understanding of Shakespeare that is almost unique amongst his generation and rarely has each classic monologue or soliloquy from both Macbeth and his Lady been so longed for by the audience. Simply put, the acting talent within this Manchester International Festival offering is a privilege to witness. 

Alex Kingston

It is the cast of this play that are the jewels in Branagh's crown. Alex Kingston's Lady Macbeth is a masterclass in manipulative matrimony, sliding before our eyes into bleak suicidal madness. Her sleepwalking scene, free of all gimmicks and trickery harrows as the actress gives fresh depth and interpretation to this most complex of Shakespeare's women. John Shrapnel's Duncan defines majesty. Ray Fearon's Macduff is as menacing when he avenges his family's slaughter, as he is heartbreaking when told of their deaths and in the sweetest of cameos, Rosalie Craig's devotedly maternal Lady Macduff claws at our base emotions as we see her witness her son's murder. Norman Bowman's Scottish brogue makes his Ross a vocal treat, whilst Charlie Cameron, Laura Elsworthy and Anjana Vasan's Witches give these Shakespearean women a ghoulishly freakish twist that alarms as much as delights.

The venue is an inspired choice. Performed in the traverse, the beautifully restored building lends itself magnificently to suggesting a feudal kingdom, far removed from the modern day. Timbers groan, and when the portly Scottish Jimmy Yuill's Banquo is slaughtered, crashing into the wall (in front of this reviewer's row A seat), his dying, clutching grasps as he succumbed were haunting. Christopher Oram's costumes of the era add to the work's chronology and the magnificent swordplay literally sees sparks fly as the heavy steel blades collide under fight director Terry King's design.

It is a credit to the production that the cast are undetectably mic'd. The clarity is perfect throughout as Christopher Shutt's sound crew manage Patrick Doyle's beautiful music, along with the delivery of the spoken word, perfectly. Lit by Neil Austin, some effects are breathtaking. That a dagger can be suggested on the floor by a bright light shining through a chink in a timber wall is a neat touch - but when daylight suddenly illuminates the stage, streaming through the building's magnificent rose-window  and supplied as it turns out, by a massive floodlight set atop a cherry-picker OUTSIDE the church, one has to gasp at the ingenuity that can deploy modern technology to deliver such a beautifully conceived yet sweetly simple vision.

Alexander Vlahos as Malcolm, battles in the muddy, bloody rain

Rob Ashford co-directs and where this giant of Broadway and the West End's strengths can lie in conceiving the movement and choreography of the text, so Branagh is a world class authority on the Bard and an accomplished movie director. The union of these creative talents is far greater than the sum of their parts. They have imbued the story with a sense of authentic spectacle usually associated with gimmickry rather than the artistic brilliance that this production represents. They give a depth to the play that focuses on the simple raw beauty of the visual image as well as the splendid verse. The result is a rare, precious and undeniably definitive production.

Runs until July 21

Making the Unmissable unmissable, those wonderful people at NTLive will be broadcasting Macbeth live to cinemas across the country and also globally, on July 20 2013. The broadcast production values of the NTLive series are world class, bringing outstanding theatre to within not only the geographical reach, but also the budget, of all.

NTLive booking details can be found here.

Finding Neverland - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

 ****

Music: Scott Frankel

Lyrics: Michael Korie

Book: Allan Knee

Director & choreographer: Rob Ashford

J M Barrie (Julian Ovenden) confronts his alter-ego played by Oliver Boot

Finding Neverland, is an exquisite piece of theatre. Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has taken the movie that he produced some 8 years ago, hired some accomplished American talent to give the tale a musical theatre treatment and then ingeniously selected Leicester’s stunning Curve Theatre to premiere the work, before it hopefully transfers to the West End and ultimately Broadway.

The semi-biographical story opens with author J M Barrie’s latest play being trashed by the critics and how rebounding from that rejection, he finds inspiration from the 4 boys in the Llewellyn-Davies family whom he befriends in Kensington Gardens, to then ultimately go on and write Peter Pan. Married to wife Mary, in what is revealed to be a well-intentioned but nevertheless loveless union, Barrie is irresistibly drawn to the boys’ widowed mother Sylvia. The relationship between these two, whilst platonic throughout, is the fulcrum of the show’s story, charting moments of both joy and tragedy that the writer shares with the young family as the couple’s love for each other develops. Writing Peter Pan, he transforms his sternest real-life theatre critic into the fictional Captain Hook, with one of the production’s most interesting musical numbers, The Pirate Inside, cleverly suggesting that the buccaneer James Hook is really the darker alter ego of James Barrie.

The cast, to a person, excel. The performances, including that of a delightful St Bernard dog are all flawlessly perfect. Julian Ovenden plays the writer, who like his famous literary creation, struggles to grow up, displaying a youthful and infectious sense of fun and irresponsibility. Ovenden captures the beautifully voiced essence of Barrie’s character within his performance, every inch more boy than man and yet possessing the personality that Sylvia is drawn too. Rosalie Craig as Sylvia similarly shines. Whilst her elegant figure fails to convince that she has borne 4 sons , her poise and presence are captivating. Vocally enchanting, her duet with Clare Foster (Mary), James Never Mentioned, in which each woman’s self-doubts and mutual envies are painfully played out, is a haunting study on a failing marriage and a nascent love affair. Oliver Boot as the critic/Hook character is a convincing villain who both in Peter Pan and as a London critic, torments Barrie. He is every inch the swashbuckling cad and Boot’s energetic delivery is a treat to watch ( and boo!). Liz Robertson, as Sylvia’s disapproving mother also delivers a sterling supporting role, combining compassionate loving mother and grandmother, with being a fearsome protector of her brood. The four talented young boys were led, on press night, by Harry Polden. Already an accomplished child actor Polden held the stage well, displaying his admiration for Barrie, along with his disdain and at times, contempt for the writer, convincingly.

Without doubt, this show is a beautiful piece of theatre, but it requires sharpening. Billed as “The New Musical Comedy”, the laughter points were infrequent and often weak. When Barrie’s cricketing contemporaries sing after a lost game, Crushed Again, the number resembles a clichéd attempt to portray a self-deprecating view of stiff upper lip British sportsmanship and whilst that may well be how we are viewed by our American cousins, such stereotyping should have ended with Mary Poppins (the film). Weinstein has spent a fortune on Finding Neverland and it shows in set design, casting and a beautifully rehearsed full orchestra, ably led by David Charles Abell. The producer has also sensibly avoided gimmickry, allowing a wonderfully strong story to tell itself. But the show needs more flying. There is a passing nod to flight in the prologue and again in the closing scene, but that is all. In much the same way as stage blood can make an audience wince at a moment of violence, so on-stage flight can provide moments of sheer breathtaking emotion. At one point in the show, a kite is flown above the heads of the Stalls, almost reaching the Circle. A sweet effect yes, but if that had instead been a Tinkerbell or Pan, sparingly deployed and truly flying within the theatre, the effect would have been profound and with Weinstein’s eye for telling a good story, probably tear-inducing. In a similar vein, the performance of Peter Pan that is put on in the home of the dying Sylvia, is performed upstage, with the spectating family sat front, backs to the audience, impeding the view of the action and distancing the audience from the production. With some minor tweaking this staging should be re-arranged as it currently detracts from the real beauty that the cast create.

This enchanting show deserves a successful run and its evolution on to a major London stage should be eagerly anticipated. Harvey Weinstein needs to invest just a little bit more, to make the funny parts of his show funnier and to deepen the poignancy of some magical moments in a wonderful story.

Runs to October 18